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Serendipity
Buttermilk Bear
A bunny and a bear want to be friends but each set of parents is prejudiced against the other animal group.
32 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 25, 2023
This is a cute story about prejudice, although it falls apart when Jingle mentions that bears believe bunnies will "ruin the neighborhood." Bunnies being prejudiced against bears makes sense, since bears are known predators. I guess bunnies might eat all the berries that bears would eat...? ?
The ending also feels more like an optimistic look toward the future rather than a direct resolution like in the other Serendipity books I've read. I guess that's fine, since it would be difficult to draw trust being built, but I don't like it as much for a so-called "moral" as with fables and other stories that wrap things up neatly. Like, the ending is supposed to prove the moral, not sort of project ambiguously into the future. (Do the bears and bunnies ever truly get along? Who knows? But at least THESE two do! ...I guess?)
Cute, would still recommend to others (as hard as it is to find copies of these anymore).
The ending also feels more like an optimistic look toward the future rather than a direct resolution like in the other Serendipity books I've read. I guess that's fine, since it would be difficult to draw trust being built, but I don't like it as much for a so-called "moral" as with fables and other stories that wrap things up neatly. Like, the ending is supposed to prove the moral, not sort of project ambiguously into the future. (Do the bears and bunnies ever truly get along? Who knows? But at least THESE two do! ...I guess?)
Cute, would still recommend to others (as hard as it is to find copies of these anymore).
May 23, 2020
Buttermilk, a female rabbit, encounters a few creatures in the woods when she goes searching for 'smelly, old bears' that her parents said moved into the neighborhood- a beaver, skunk, and a bear cub named Jingle, who's gender is told, who tells her they're trying to find the rabbits their parents were talking about. This book isn't to be confused with another one from this series called 'Buttermilk.' It's a really sweet story but the ending isn't positive in the way you think it will be. That's why it doesn't get an A+ from me. The illustrations are colorful and beautiful. My favorite one is here .
May 2, 2019
Can a bunny and a bear be friends if their parents do not like each other?
December 31, 2020
I think Papa bunny is from Maine, lol.
Anyhow cute story about prejudism and how children have a way of breaking those stigmas.
Anyhow cute story about prejudism and how children have a way of breaking those stigmas.
November 19, 2019
I love this one, but it's also really sad. Oddly sad, for a Serendipity story, when these nearly always end with a solid resolution.
Here we bring together two characters from previous books - Jingle Bear and Buttermilk. We've had a chance to see both their worlds, told from their points of view, with Buttermilk and Jingle at the hearts of their stories, learning about when to go to sleep and how to differentiate dreams/nightmares from everyday reality.
When Buttermilk's family moves to a new home, her parents warn her about the waddle-tail bears whose presence will ruin the neighborhood. Being a curious creature who's learned not to fear anything she sees in the bright, honest daylight, she wanders off to find herself a smelly old bear to find out why they're so frightening.
Instead, she meets Jingle, whose parents have similarly sneered about the new-to-the-neighborhood waggle-eared bunnies.
Buttermilk and Jingle become fast friends, in that way children do, and the panel where they hug before parting ways is one of my favorite images in all these books. Beautiful and heart-wrenchingly lovely. Their friendship is wonderful.
Their parents don't think so.
Buttermilk and Jingle are allowed to meet up one final time, but only to say goodbye. And the terrible part is...that's the end of the tale, at least for now. (And to my knowledge, there wasn't ever a fourth book?) Because the reality is that you can't change people's minds for them. Not right away, and not without them being willing to accept other perspectives. And as wonderful as Buttermilk's and Jingle's parents are in the context of their own households, they're close-minded about certain views they grew up with and cannot fathom being anything but the truth.
"That is the way it has been and that is the way it will be!" Buttermilk's father sternly tells her.
The final page ends with Buttermilk and Jingle walking down a forest path, paw in paw, as a sign of their continuing friendship, and hopefully an eventual softening of their parents' hardened hearts. It's a lovely, wrenching little story about prejudice and the difficult but necessary process of breaking down barriers.
Here we bring together two characters from previous books - Jingle Bear and Buttermilk. We've had a chance to see both their worlds, told from their points of view, with Buttermilk and Jingle at the hearts of their stories, learning about when to go to sleep and how to differentiate dreams/nightmares from everyday reality.
When Buttermilk's family moves to a new home, her parents warn her about the waddle-tail bears whose presence will ruin the neighborhood. Being a curious creature who's learned not to fear anything she sees in the bright, honest daylight, she wanders off to find herself a smelly old bear to find out why they're so frightening.
Instead, she meets Jingle, whose parents have similarly sneered about the new-to-the-neighborhood waggle-eared bunnies.
Buttermilk and Jingle become fast friends, in that way children do, and the panel where they hug before parting ways is one of my favorite images in all these books. Beautiful and heart-wrenchingly lovely. Their friendship is wonderful.
Their parents don't think so.
Buttermilk and Jingle are allowed to meet up one final time, but only to say goodbye. And the terrible part is...that's the end of the tale, at least for now. (And to my knowledge, there wasn't ever a fourth book?) Because the reality is that you can't change people's minds for them. Not right away, and not without them being willing to accept other perspectives. And as wonderful as Buttermilk's and Jingle's parents are in the context of their own households, they're close-minded about certain views they grew up with and cannot fathom being anything but the truth.
"That is the way it has been and that is the way it will be!" Buttermilk's father sternly tells her.
The final page ends with Buttermilk and Jingle walking down a forest path, paw in paw, as a sign of their continuing friendship, and hopefully an eventual softening of their parents' hardened hearts. It's a lovely, wrenching little story about prejudice and the difficult but necessary process of breaking down barriers.
May 27, 2016
NO WHY DID YOU RUIN BUTTERMILK'S DAD STEPHEN COSGROVE. This is like the incredibly-much-smaller-scale betrayal of making Atticus Finch a closed-minded putz.
So Buttermilk (of Buttermilk fame) and family move to a new area where there are *gasp* bears, who of course ruin neighborhoods (what a human phrase!). Cosgrove here takes on a HUGE topic of prejudice, for which I give mad props because that's definitely something we should start talking about young but which just doesn't work in the end. I don't know if the topic's too big or the book's too small or what, but I feel like this just acknowledged that there's a problem and then ended. Perhaps that's the best thing it can do because then this is sparking conversation between parents and their kids; if I had kids, I would probably love it for that. I did really appreciate the tack that those we fear or dislike have their own fears and dislikes, perhaps even of us, because no one is two-dimensional. And of course a baby bear and a bunny are adorable together (which actually works because bears don't so much eat live rabbits unless they're REALLY hungry).
So good conversation starter about how we view The Other, but the language complexity is a little much for smaller kids and the topic is kind of overwhelming. And my heart's still broken over the prejudice of Buttermilk's dad. Seriously, that hurt, Cosgrove.
So Buttermilk (of Buttermilk fame) and family move to a new area where there are *gasp* bears, who of course ruin neighborhoods (what a human phrase!). Cosgrove here takes on a HUGE topic of prejudice, for which I give mad props because that's definitely something we should start talking about young but which just doesn't work in the end. I don't know if the topic's too big or the book's too small or what, but I feel like this just acknowledged that there's a problem and then ended. Perhaps that's the best thing it can do because then this is sparking conversation between parents and their kids; if I had kids, I would probably love it for that. I did really appreciate the tack that those we fear or dislike have their own fears and dislikes, perhaps even of us, because no one is two-dimensional. And of course a baby bear and a bunny are adorable together (which actually works because bears don't so much eat live rabbits unless they're REALLY hungry).
So good conversation starter about how we view The Other, but the language complexity is a little much for smaller kids and the topic is kind of overwhelming. And my heart's still broken over the prejudice of Buttermilk's dad. Seriously, that hurt, Cosgrove.
July 3, 2017
A return of two different characters in a book - Jingle Bear and Buttermilk Bunny. If you follow the pictures from the previous book Buttermilk's father isn't the same color as the last book if they are even the same family.
A cute story that is a child's version of Romeo and Juliet without the romance and star-crossed tragedy of lost lives. Both families are afraid of each other while banning their children from ever seeing other again but there is a clue that they are just biding their time for the right time.
A cute story that is a child's version of Romeo and Juliet without the romance and star-crossed tragedy of lost lives. Both families are afraid of each other while banning their children from ever seeing other again but there is a clue that they are just biding their time for the right time.
February 5, 2011
One of the books my mother read to us when we were little. I liked it enough that I remembered the title to add it to this list...
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February 20, 2019This one is far more mature and far less saccharine than I expected it to be. It shows some of the ways that prejudices take root ("ruining the neighborhood", indeed), and the ways that children tend to thoughtlessly parrot the prejudices of their parents without really understanding what it means. What strikes me the most, though, is that it isn't an unequivocally happy ending: neither Buttermilk Bunny nor Jingle Bear ever succeeds in changing their parents' minds about the other species, but can only choose to carry on with their friendship in spite of their parents' wishes and avoid repeating their parents' mistakes.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews